High hopes for the high court on race and marriage

Supreme Court | La Shawn Barber

A group from Alabama prays outside the Supreme Court Wednesday morning.Associated Press/Photo by Carolyn Kaster

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in Schuette v. Michigan Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, a racial preferences case out of Michigan. Last October, the court heard a similar case, Abigail Fisher v. University of Texas.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit struck down a 2006 voter-approved ban in Michigan on racial preferences in state employment, education, and contacting. Although the voters chose racial neutrality in government (which needs the fruits of citizens’ labor to function), the court contended that such neutrality was unconstitutional.

“The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was backed by 58 percent of the Michigan electorate and simply states that public institutions cannot grant preferential treatment to any group or individual on the basis of race,” Jennifer Gratz said in a press release. Gratz was the plaintiff in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), a Supreme Court case that struck down the University of Michigan undergraduate school’s points-for-race admissions policy. “The court erred when it declared equality unconstitutional,” she added. “We believe the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn the 6th Circuit’s decision.” Gratz, who recently founded the XIV Foundation, which advocates equal rights for all citizens, was part of the Michigan campaign to end preferences.

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This week the court is hearing arguments in two cases whose outcomes will have a huge effect on marriage and family. The court held a hearing yesterday on whether a voter-approved constitutional amendment in California that defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman is constitutional. This morning the court heard arguments on whether Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1996, should stand. The section defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman.

That the ancient and divine institution of marriage is being challenged in this manner is evidence of our continuing and intractable depravity. Homosexuals are offended when we warn that allowing homosexual marriage will open the floodgates to polygamy and the mainstreaming of pedophilia. But could anyone even a generation ago imagine that we’d have to go to court to protect marriage from nonsensical expansion that includes two people of the same sex? You don’t think pedophiles will be emboldened to normalize their perversion as well? As sick as it is, I can easily see it happening. God, bless America?

One certainly can imagine a government treating people differently based on the color of their skin, because racial discrimination against black Americans used to be legal. Today, the government continues to racially discriminate. Although the focus of racial preferences, euphemistically known as “affirmative action,” is on lowering standards for “protected minorities” (typically blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians) to make up for past discrimination and increase skin-color diversity, the result is discrimination against whites and non-protected minorities (typically East Asians).

Will the Supreme Court make the correct decisions on race and marriage? If so, we move one step closer to race-neutral government and protecting an institution necessary for the well being of children and society.